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Monday, November 26, 2007

This morning I had my first turkey sandwich of the season. Which is reasonable, since this is the Monday after Thanksgiving. What is amazing about my turkey sandwich is that there has been so much food in this house all weekend that I just haven't gotten time to look into reinvented turkey. I did snack on plates of leftover Thanksgiving dinner for three days, but am now pretty much done with potatoes and stuffing for awhile. I just hope the desserts are still tasty by the time I get around to those.

Anyway. This page is hardly big enough to contain everything I would like to say about food from this weekend. When I get a chance I will post my food thoughts on my food site, you may visit them there. Let it suffice to say that there was a plenitude of good food all around us this weekend. I was also glad to hear that my friend Jeanette was able to put together a Thanksgiving feast in the Philippines, together with her fellow World Racers.

This weekend was everything we could have wanted in a holiday weekend, other than the lack of a complete family quorum. I personally kicked off the weekend Tuesday night by parking my car and myself here on the property for what turned out to be until Sunday. And I didn't miss the trek down the long winding road one bit. Maren was off school starting Wednesday, and Dad Burdine didn't go into the office that day, so it was actually a five day weekend for him, the kids and myself. There was lots of food prep on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then it kicked into high gear on Thursday.

Maren and I began Thursday by watching the Macy's Parade. Then we turned on the Lions' game in honor of my Papa who always had that on at his house when I was a kid. He passed away 13 months ago, and I think I missed him more during that game than I have yet. Later I turned on the Cowboys' game (with much more satisfying results) just to have it on in the house, while the indoor dwellers moved to another room for a viewing of Elf. Oh, I probably should not have had Maren watch that yet, but she did find many things to giggle over.

The outdoor family members worked at rearranging the garage into its new life as a music studio. Earlier in the day they had made a trip to Lowe's only to find it closed, but undaunted they put in several hours of organizational work anyway. It's looking better all the time!

Late in the day we set up the craft tables in the living room to create the platform for the family feast. Whitney oversaw the decorating while Mom Burdine orchestrated getting the food all hot at the target moment, and the kids just tried to stay out from underfoot.

I don't even remember what happened after supper. Too much food in my brain, I guess.

Friday was the big A&M annual matchup with the Texas Longhorns. For the first time in at least half the season, the players showed up for the game. They made a variety of plays, completed passes, converted third downs into first downs, and actually found the end zone several times. They entertained the crowd with at least three trick plays, some of which worked beautifully. They dominated the game, giving Aggie fans something to cheer about after an embarrassing season, and capped off the whole experience by holding on to their lead until the end of the game.

What apparently came as a surprise and a letdown to the players but was fully expected by everyone else was that the coach announced his resignation at the end of the game. Even a win against Texas could not make up for a season marked by scandal, multiple blowout losses on a national stage, and an obvious lack of direction that characterized most of the games. And what do I care? I don't know, but I love to watch well-played football, and watching the Aggies this season has been anything but that. Along with many frustrated Aggie fans, I sincerely hope to see more of the purposeful team that played Friday, next season.

We were so jazzed about A&M's win that we built our own token bonfire out back and toasted marshmallows before putting the kids to bed. Totally awesome.

Saturday the rain came. The lights never went up outside the house, as the cold and wet were too much for the thin-skinned natives. We focused on “out with the old” as the guys continued organizing the garage, and Dawn organized the living room closet. Most of what came out of the closet went into the garage. When the dust settled, we were ready to decorate the Christmas tree. We played Christmas music, burned the Christmas candle, and got out the Christmas treats (more about those in the food blog).

Sunday was still pretty full. We had brunch after church; Dawn makes amazing stuffed french toast. In the afternoon we decorated gingerbread houses. And for the rest of the day, we played video games. Just before bedtime, we created a slideshow of our weekend adventure and agreed that it was a pretty perfect time.

To see some of the pictures from our weekend, visit my Thanksgiving photo album. Hope you enjoy this glimpse!

This morning was quite a shocker. Oh holy cow, 6:30 came early this morning. I am still recovering, and here it is time to go pick up Maren from school already. I'll get to that food post later, I promise.